From my car, I saw a sign for Sweet Beginnings attached to a chain-link fence rimmed in barbed wire. I debated with myself over the relative merits of staying in or getting out of my car.

Through the fence, I could make out the hives, 40 of them, resembling dresser drawers stacked five high, a surrealist painting of urban honey works. Over a million bees had already punched-in, swarming the hives and stopping for drinks at huge tubs of water with floating corks so they could sip at leisure.

The bees were as remarkable as their keepers — two formerly incarcerated young men and one woman — who chose to work the hives as part of a paid transitional employment program. Last summer, they produced 400,000 pounds of honey and sold it all at local farmers’ markets, under the name “Beeline.”

The keepers moved gracefully among the hives, holding tin smokers emitting a calming hickory aroma. The tops of the hives were coated with bees so thick you could barely see the trays (or supers, as they call them). The keepers extracted the vertical supers from the drawers, delicately shaking the bees from their honeycombs. The bees tumbled from the supers onto the concrete and then wriggled back into the opening on the bottom of the hive. In the height of honey season, they were inundated with work and would not be deterred from their primary objective.

My primary objective that morning was to see. Georgia O’Keeffe, celebrated flora painter, wrote, “Nobody sees a flower, really ... It is so small, we haven’t time, and to see takes time.”

* * *

Beekeepers, however, would rather be unseen.

That hot July morning, I wore my typical black pants and striped tank. The head beekeeper, Michael Thompson, handed me a huge straw hat as soon as he saw me, which kept slipping over my eyes. Then he helped me into a veil. The younger keepers expressed concern about my exposed arms and suggested I wear a white nylon jacket, the universal color of peaceful intentions which goes happily unnoticed by the bees.

While beekeepers can go unnoticed, bees fortunately stand out. Perhaps God ringed them with yellow and black stripes to caution other creatures -- a warning not well heeded by my neighbor’s late dog Fred who painfully swallowed them -- so that we would approach these thorny, gifted insects with reverence.

* * *

I stood just a few feet from the hives as the young men jiggled the bees from the supers and extracted the honey. The air around me sizzled. I stood as still as I could, willing myself not to flinch.

Terror and awe were one as I stood in the eye of the swarm, perfectly still. The term “ecstasy” makes some uneasy because of hallucinogenic and sexual connotations. But its root word exstasis means to stand out of yourself. When the air sizzled, it was easy to forget myself, to slip out of my own worries and to realize that I was a small, vulnerable part of something much larger than myself.

It was relief, if only for a few moments. It was like remembering to inhale deeply after a series of shallow breaths. After being so focused on the bees, I could see everything else more clearly. Is this part of the gift the bees give to their keepers — an opportunity to come out of themselves, to turn away from what they’ve done and to remember what they could be? To be, if nothing else, ecstatic.

* * *

As I watched the beekeepers work, they would periodically break off small bits of honeycomb that grew along the rims of the supers. After checking for bees, they’d suck they honey from the comb.

“We do this for energy,” Micheal Thompson said, “But we also do it to remember why we are here.”

They offered me a few delicious samples, along with some nourishing thoughts about urban beekeeping. Beekeepers have discovered that cities like Chicago are ideal for harvesting honey because of the abundant and diverse flora. The bees don’t have to travel as far for pollen as their rural counterparts do because of the well-watered flowers in every window box and porch. Nor do they have to contend with the scourge of agricultural pesticides, which can wipe out bee populations in droves.

Because of this abundance urban honey is especially flavorful. Beeline’s honey is even beginning to make its slow trickle into some of Chicago’s best restaurants because of its distinctive flavor.

* * *

I tasted the bee's honey, but I also experienced her sting.

I’d heard that bees sting only when threatened. In The Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidd’s beekeepers continually send love toward the bees and exorcise their own fears. I tried to do these things, but still, I got stung.

At one point, one of the bees started attacking my veil. I tried to act nonchalant about the little guy bashing against the screen, but it was unsettling. After several unsuccessful attempts to break through, this bee gave up.

Later, when I was sitting on the concrete jotting down notes, a bee landed on my knee and dug in.

“It hurts,” I said, cringing, as a beekeeper gently brushed the dying bee off of my leg. “Yeah,” he said, “We try to avoid it.”

* * *

All beekeepers get stung, but the pain doesn’t seem to deter them. Maybe they’re able to see the pain and risk as a small piece of a bigger, more hopeful picture.

“Always act in the name of hope,” my seminary mentor told me. I think about the bees and their keepers, harvesting honey on the cracked expanse of the old Sears loading docks, encircled by chain-link and barbed wire, hedged in on all sides by a neighborhood sagging with unemployment, violence and despair. I think about the lush garden the keepers have grown to make the apiary hospitable to bees and to have a little harvest on their tables, too. I think about the tomatoes, carrots, and baby watermelons, as small and unassuming as boiled eggs.

Honey and hope are harvested in turns at Sweet Beginnings, unflinching evidence of things seen and unseen on a smoggy city morning, a perfect sigh of calm in the eye of the swarm.